CH 4.3

Chapter 4: Is this cohabitation really okay?

Part 3

For a moment, Lila had an idea. If she could just erase her existence from the empire, wouldn’t that remove the danger of the original? She thought.

She might not be able to do it alone, but with the Duke’s help, it might be possible.

“What?”

Lucas stared at her in confusion.

“I’m not asking you to actually kill me, I’m asking you to make me disappear from this empire.”

“In other words, you want a new identity?”

“Yes, that’s right.”

Lucas was confused as he watched Lila shake her head with a wide smile on her face. He could not give her love, but he would treat her well as a duchess, and if she wanted, he would give her a few buildings and mines in her name.

If she wanted to live in a manor other than this one, he could give her a mansion, or a villa in a touristy area, anywhere in the Vassium Empire.

However, when she said she wanted to acquire a new identity, she meant going to another country, and he could only do less in another country than the Empire.

Why anyone would want a new identity is beyond him, but it shouldn’t be difficult.

“It shouldn’t be difficult.”

Lila smiled at the expected answer. It was an incredibly cute smile, despite her freckle-filled face, grumpy eyes, and the ghastly mole on the side of her nose.

Lucas rolled his eyes in surprise; even with his own freckled face, she looked so different.

“I don’t want it to be too late, though, so may I set a deadline, at least two years after the wedding. Oh, and do we need to have a full year of cohabitation?”

Lucas was distracted by Lila, who was talking fast with a cheerful voice. It was strange that he had just thought her cute, but her voice stuck in his ear, confusing him.

Her voice was so fresh and clean that it felt like it was cooling his ears the more he listened to it.

And as she leaned forward with excitement, the scent of Lila’s body caught his nose and wouldn’t let go.

The scent he had first smelled at the age of eight in the Imperial Palace was sweeter and more concentrated.

Raising his palm to the briskly speaking Lila, Lucas said.

“I’ll draw up a contract and show it to you, and then we can fill in the blanks as we see fit.”

Confused by the strange feeling, Lucas spoke hastily.

“I’m afraid I’ve taken up a lot of your time, sir, as I have some business to attend to on the estate today.”

“I’m afraid I talked too much for a busy man, yes, I see.”

Lila stood up, bowed, and walked out the door, leaving Lucas, who watched in confusion for a moment as she shuffled out the door, to bury his upper body into the couch.

“Ha! His Majesty is concerned…”

Lucas remembered the Emperor pressuring him in a subtle way. He shouldn’t have had to bow to the Emperor, but his royal blood made him do it.

An ancient wolf god, the first of the Imperials.

Lupus.

This blood gave them their powers and their trials.

The Empire of Vassium is a nation with a long and storied history, and it all began when the wolf god Lupus fell in love with a human woman.

Wolves have only one mate in their lifetime, and they love them and their offspring.

As he read the myth, Lucas thought to himself.

The Wolf God was indeed a domestic god.

But while they believed in Lupus, the people of the Empire of Vassium were different: they valued romance. Romance was more prevalent in aristocratic society than in the struggling commoners, and aristocrats cherished their patrons, or lovers, more than they cherished their spouses in arranged marriages.

The aristocracy of the empire of Vassium saw family as a public affair and romance as finding someone you truly love unconditionally.

This may have led to the unique practice of cohabitation known as ‘pre-marriage cohabitation.’

Lucas’s father and mother were no different. His father, who had given up his dukedom early on, was living with his lover and enjoying his old age. His mother was no different.

So there were many young men in the empire of Vassium who inherited titles at a young age.

His brother had met his match early on, but like many nobles, he had married out of wedlock and kept his wife aside. His wife did the same.

When his nephew was born, he and his sister-in-law were too busy with their own lovers to pay attention to the child. They thought they could leave him to nannies and tutors, and Lucas, who actually spent his childhood like that, didn’t find it strange, but he was skeptical of his love itself.

Why not just marry the person you love instead of having a significant other?

Lucas himself would probably go crazy if he saw the person he loved building a family with someone other than himself.

However, people’s unpleasant stares did not make him fall in love with women. He was tired of the ladies who looked at him with contempt and disgust.

It had never occurred to him that he was ugly. Of course, he never thought he was handsome, but he didn’t think he deserved the hateful stares.

Lucas remembered his brother before he died. He remembered the back of the carriage as he hurried away after reading his longtime lover’s parting words.

He hadn’t realized that it would be the last time he would see him. Nor could he understand his sister-in-law’s decision to leave her child alone and go to her lover as soon as her husband died.

“Fucking romance.”

Lucas was so sick of Imperial romance.

* * *

Lila’s steps were very light as she passed through the halls of the Duke of Montefeltra, and she didn’t mind the small murmurs that accompanied her passage.

She was happy to have an unexpected backup plan.

Just as she was about to head back to her room, Lila stopped Vincent, who was guiding her.

“I would like to take a look around the garden for a moment.”

“Duchess, you can’t be respectful to me. Please feel free to call me by my first name.”

Lila nodded to Vincent, who bowed slightly.

“I will.”

“Then allow me to escort you to the garden.”

Looking at the back of Vincent, who had gray hair, Lila thought of the barony.

No one in the Barony of Este had ever treated her like this. Butlers, maids, servants, and even the coachman were busy avoiding her, not looking her in the eyes and treating her with courtesy.

Of course, it may have been because she was being domineering to keep her distance.

Nevertheless, Vincent’s polite treatment made her feel strange.

As she walked out the back door of the main building, she saw a stone path. After walking along the neat stone path for a while, I came across a road of colorful flowers.

“The flowers that mark the beginning of spring are blooming. In the north, spring starts later than in the capital, and winter starts earlier.”

Lila turned her head busily as she listened to his deep voice explain. The size of the garden was overwhelming, even though the flowers hadn’t finished blooming yet.

It looked ten times larger than the Lilac garden at the barony. There were many large, pointed leaves. Trees as tall as Lila looked somehow familiar.

“Is that a hydrangea?”

Hearing her mutter in a low voice, Vincent answered.

“Yes, it is. It’s a flower that can be found on the grounds of the Dukedom of Montefeltra, who are of royal blood.”

Lila nodded at his words.

The blue hydrangea had been given to him by the ancient wolf god Lupus.

It was the first flower Lupus saw when he descended to the human world, and he gave it to his mate as a gift because it was the same color as her eyes, but the word for it was far from loving.

Cold or heartless.

Perhaps it was the color blue, Lila thought, but she had always liked blue best among the hydrangeas, so she didn’t care what the flower signifies.

Even though this was the first hydrangea she’d seen since having possessed.

“Have you seen them in the palace?”

It was a flower that had been touched by Lupus, so it was common there.

Vincent had assumed that Lila would have seen hydrangeas in the palace, but she hadn’t even known it was there.

“Yes, I have.”

“Please speak comfortably.”

Vincent made a request to her, who spoke formally again in embarrassment, and took a step forward.

“Hmm, okay.”

Although she was a modern woman at heart, she had been living here for 10 years, yet still felt out of place.

Vincent’s skillful guidance led her to a place that smelled sweetly.

Lila smiled at the familiar colors and shapes of the flowers. The lilacs were just beginning to bloom and were beautiful in their own right.

As Lila stopped to admire the lilacs, Vincent said.

“Would you like to have tea here?”

The breeze was still cool, but it looked like it would be nice enough to have tea outside. Lila nodded, her eyes shining.

“Then please wait for me for a while. I’ll be right back.”

“Okay.”

Leaving Vincent pacing behind her, Lila sat down in a nearby chair.

She inhaled the scent that filled her nostrils and hummed as she looked up at the sky, which seemed higher than the capital.

It felt good like a new day had dawned. While humming, Lila heard a rustling sound.

She looked around, wondering if it was an illusion, and then looked up at the sky and heard the rustling again.